Nobel Prize For Physics 2013: Francois Englert And Peter W. Higgs Honored For Higgs Boson Research | The Huffington Post Nobel Prize For Physics 2013: Francois Englert And Peter W. Higgs Honored For Higgs Boson Research 10/08/2013 06:48 am ET | Updated Oct 09, 2013 2.5k Francois Englert and Peter W. Higgs won the 2013 Nobel Prize For Physics on Tuesday for their research into the Higgs boson particle , nicknamed the "God particle." The award is given annually for the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics. Englert, a Belgian theoretical physicist, and Higgs, a British physicist, earned the prestigious prize for "the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass subatomic particles" which was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, the Nobel Prize Twitter feed reported . The awarded theory is a central part of the Standard Model of particle physics that describes how the world is constructed.

#NobelPrize — Nobelprize_org (@Nobelprize_org) October 8, 2013 In the 1960s, Higgs and Englert theorized the existence of the particle to explain why matter has mass. Decades would pass before scientists at CERN, the Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Research, were able to confirm its existence . The European particle physics laboratory announced the confirmation in July of last year, The Associated Press reported. More from the AP: STOCKHOLM (AP) — Physicists Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their theoretical discoveries on how subatomic particles acquire mass. Their theories were confirmed last year by the discovery of the so-called Higgs particle, also known as the Higgs boson, at a laboratory in Geneva, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. The announcement, which was widely expected, was delayed by one hour, which is highly unusual. The academy gave no immediate reason, other than saying on Twitter that it was "still in session" at the original announcement time. The academy decides the winners in a majority vote on the day of the announcement.

"I am overwhelmed to receive this award and thank the Royal Swedish Academy," Higgs said in a statement released by the University of Edinburgh. "I hope this recognition of fundamental science will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research." Englert and Higgs theorized about the existence of the particle in the 1960s to provide an answer to a riddle: why matter has mass. The tiny particle, they believed, acts like molasses on snow — causing other basic building blocks of nature to stick together, slow down and form atoms. But decades would pass before scientists at CERN, the Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Research, were able to confirm its existence. The European particle physics laboratory announced the news in July of last year. Finding the particle — often referred to as the "God particle" — required teams of thousands of scientists and mountains of data from trillions of colliding protons in the world's biggest atom smasher — CERN's Large Hadron Collider — which produces energies simulating those 1 trillionth to 2 trillionths of a second after the Big Bang.

The collider cost $10 billion to build and run in a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel beneath the Swiss-French border. Only about one collision per trillion will produce one of the Higgs bosons in the collider, and it took CERN some time after the discovery of a new "Higgs-like" boson to decide that the particle was, in fact, very much like the Higgs boson expected in the original formulation, rather than a kind of variant.

Also on HuffPost: Peter Higgs and François Englert win Nobel Prize in Physics – as it happened | Science | The Guardian Peter Higgs Peter Higgs and François Englert win Nobel Prize in Physics – as it happened Briton Peter Higgs and Belgian François Englert have won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics, 'for something small that makes all the difference' – the Higgs boson Tuesday 8 October 2013 10.08 EDT First published on Tuesday 8 October 2013 04.41 EDT Close 5.17pm BST The comedian Dara Ó Briain has written a comment piece for the Guardian in which he recalls a public interview with Peter Higgs at the Cheltenham Science Festival last year: Before the interview I showed him a T-shirt I bought at the gift shop in Cern, with a masssively long and complicated equation printed on it. I asked him to explain it to me, term by term, and he patiently went through the equation, until we got to the last line.

Twinkling, he said proudly: 'And that's my bit.' 3.47pm BST François Englert gives his reaction Englert has been speaking to reporters. Asked if the Nobel prize has come too late (some 50 years after his paper was published), he responds: Listen, I don't know. I am happy I got it now. For me it is not too late. I'm still here, so it is OK. Sadly the prize did come too late for his co-author Robert Brout, who died in 2011, a year before Cern announced they had discovered the Higgs boson . More reactions from scientists John Pethica, physical secretary and vice-president of the Royal Society, said: Peter Higgs and François Englert are deserving winners of the Nobel Prize. Their work has helped shape our fundamental understanding of the world around us. The search for and finding of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider in Cern has captured the public imagination in a spectacular way that will help inspire the next generation of physicists. Their ideas have helped drive a truly international undertaking in the pursuit of a key part of the Standard Model. We should be proud of another success for a British scientist.

Professor Paul Newman, head of the Particle Physics Group at the University of Birmingham, said: At first sight, the Higgs mechanism is a very strange idea indeed. It requires the entire universe, even deepest intergalactic space, to be filled with a new field of a fundamentally different kind from anything previously known. The audacity of proposing such a bizarre and all-pervading mechanism based on what was known half a century ago is simply stunning. The confirmation of the idea through the LHC’s discovery of a Higgs boson is one of the most incredible scientific stories of recent times. Recognition by the Nobel Committee is thoroughly deserved! Professor Jerome Gauntlett, head of theoretical physics at Imperial College London, said: Their visionary ideas about how elementary particles acquire mass, from nearly 50 years ago, were dramatically confirmed earlier this year with the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider. This will surely be remembered as one of the great chapters of scientific discovery. Imperial is also proud of its involvement, including profound contributions by Tom Kibble, Abdus Salam and the experimental team at the LHC.

Like all great discoveries, more detailed studies of the Higgs boson are likely to have a huge impact on the future of fundamental scientific enquiry. We may find evidence for a new 'supersymmetry' which would mean that there are even more elementary particles waiting to be discovered. We might solve the riddle of the mysterious dark matter that pervades the universe. We might learn whether or not there are extra dimensions in the universe, in addition to the three space dimensions that we observe. These threads will also provide key clues to the ultimate question in fundamental physics, which is: how can we unify the Standard Model of particle physics with Einstein’s theory of gravity? Updated 2.35pm BST 'The Nobel prize is really annoying' Writing on his blog, Preposterous Universe , theoretical physicist Sean Carroll gets something off his chest about an often-discussed problem with the Nobel prize – namely that the tradition of awarding it to a maximum of three people is just no decent reflection of modern science. The most annoying of all the annoying aspects is, of course, the rule in physics (and the other non-peace prizes, I think) that the prize can go to at most three people.

This is utterly artificial, and completely at odds with the way science is actually done these days. In my book I spread credit for the Higgs mechanism among no fewer than seven people: Philip Anderson, François Englert, Robert Brout (who is now deceased), Peter Higgs, Gerald Guralnik, Carl Hagen, and Tom Kibble. In a sensible world they would share the credit, but in our world we have endless pointless debates (the betting money right now seems to be pointing toward Englert and Higgs, but who knows). As far as I can tell, the 'no more than three winners' rule isn’t actually written down in Nobel’s will, it’s more of a tradition that has grown up over the years. It’s kind of like the government shutdown: we made up some rules, and are now suffering because of them … The worst thing about the prizes is that people become obsessed with them — both the scientists who want to win, and the media who write about the winners. What really matters, or should matter, is finding something new and fundamental about how nature works, either through a theoretical idea or an experimental discovery. Prizes are just the recognition thereof, not the actual point of the exercise.

Updated at 3.59pm BST 2.12pm BST Fabiola Gianotti, the particle physicist who was head of the Atlas collaboration at Cern when the Higgs boson discovery was announced last year, spoke to the Guardian's Ian Sample about the Nobel win for Peter Higgs and Francois Englert. We'll have more on this (and the other Nobel Prizes too) in next week's podcast. Updated at 2.14pm BST 2.06pm BST British theoretical physicist Peter Higgs (left) and Belgian theoretical physicist François Englert, who have won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images Updated 2.05pm BST Science isn't just about lone geniuses Prof Jon Butterworth, head of physics at UCL and a member of the Atlas experiment at the LHC, sends his congratulations to Peter Higgs and François Englert … But (and there is a "but") prizes only give one view of how science is done. They encourage the idea that the typical manner of progress in science is the breakthrough of a lone genius.

In reality, while lone geniuses and breakthroughs do occur, incremental progress and collaboration are more important in increasing our understanding of nature. Even the theory breakthrough behind this prize required a body of incrementally acquired knowledge to which many contributed. The discovery of a Higgs boson , showing that the theoretical ideas are manifested in the real world, was thanks to the work of many thousands. There are 3,000 or so people on Atlas, a similar number on CMS, and hundreds who worked on the LHC. While the citation gives handsome credit for all this, part of me still wishes the prizes could have acknowledged it too. Updated 1.31pm BST Congratulations for the many British scientists also involved in finding the boson Particle physicist Professor John Womersley, who heads up the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), paid homage to the scientists at Cern, who built and operated the Large Hadron Collider, partly in order to find the Higgs boson. A total of 19 research groups in the UK were involved in the work. I'm extremely proud that this huge honour has been given to Peter Higgs and François Englert for their work in predicting the existence of the Higgs boson.

Today is a celebration of their genius, and it's something everyone in the UK can share in. It took several decades and the construction of the world's largest science experiment to prove them right – and that investment didn't just teach us something new about the universe, it transformed our everyday lives. Particle physics has brought us the World Wide Web, touchscreens, superconducting magnets and medical imaging detectors, and it's an area of science where the UK is world-leading. STFC congratulates the winners of this well-deserved award, together with all of the scientists, engineers and industry partners involved in the worldwide collaborations that confirmed that their insight was correct. Updated Science minister David Willetts has weighed in with his congratulations for Higgs and Englert . I congratulate Professor Peter Higgs on his Nobel prize. Higgs’s contribution to scientific discovery in the UK is enormous. Our Nobel laureate thoroughly deserves this prestigious award. We should also celebrate the efforts of the thousands of scientists and engineers all over the world who have worked on the Large Hadron Collider and the long search for the Higgs boson. This is the 23rd Nobel Prize for Physics to come to the UK – we should all be very proud of this wonderful achievement.

It’s an incredible endorsement of the quality of UK science. Updated 12.56pm BST Peter Higgs statement In a statement released through Edinburgh University, where Peter Higgs, 84, is an emeritus professor, he said: I am overwhelmed to receive this award and thank the Royal Swedish Academy. I would also like to congratulate all those who have contributed to the discovery of this new particle and to thank my family, friends and colleagues for their support. I hope this recognition of fundamental science will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research. Updated 12.39pm BST Professor Tom Kibble reacts In 1964 Professor Tom Kibble developed the theory of the mass-giving field, which later became known as the Higgs field, just a month after Peter Higgs and François Englert. Kibble was widely tipped to be one of the winners today but he, and his American co-authors, have not been recognised. I am glad to see that the Swedish Academy has recognised the importance of the mass-generating mechanism for gauge theories and the prediction of the Higgs boson, recently verified at Cern.

My two collaborators, Gerald Guralnik and Carl Richard Hagen, and I contributed to that discovery, but our paper was unquestionably the last of the three to be published in Physical Review Letters in 1964 (though we naturally regard our treatment as the most thorough and complete) and it is therefore no surprise that the Swedish Academy felt unable to include us, constrained as they are by a self-imposed rule that the prize cannot be shared by more than three people. My sincere congratulations go to the two prizewinners, François Englert and Peter Higgs. A sad omission from the list was Englert’s collaborator Robert Brout, now deceased. Theoretical physicist Tom Kibble. Photograph: Moose-32/Wikimedia Commons Updated Reaction from Peter Higgs' colleagues in Edinburgh Alan Walker at Edinburgh University's Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics says of the announcement: A huge cheer went up. The delay was tantalising. The forecast was correct, but we had no indication. I have tears in my eyes. Peter has had a bout of bronchitis and then had a nasty fall outside his house. He looked as though he'd been mugged.

The pressure was so much he decided to go on holiday without a phone to avoid the media storm. He's not available and good for him. He didn't tell even me. Updated 12.14pm BST Ben Allanach, a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge, says: This is the recognition of a triumph for fundamental physics that will stay in the history books for millennia to come. I am thrilled about the prize, and Englert and Higgs both deserve it well. I cannot over-stress the importance of the discovery. The mass mechanism that the Higgs boson is a signal for has had a huge impact on particle physics over the last 50 years. I think many of us felt that it had to be correct, although we were willing to let data dissuade us. Congratulations to Francois and to Peter! Updated Belgian physicist Francois Englert (left) and British physicist Peter Higgs (right).

Photograph: Martial Trezzini/EPA Updated 11.55am BST Full citation from Nobel committee The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 was awarded jointly to François Englert and Peter W Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the Atlas and CMS experiments at Cern's Large Hadron Collider". François Englert , Belgian citizen. Born 1932 in Etterbeek, Belgium. PhD 1959 from Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium. Professor Emeritus at Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium. Peter W Higgs , UK citizen. Born 1929 in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. PhD 1954 from King’s College, University of London, UK. Professor emeritus at University of Edinburgh, UK. Updated 11.49am BST Winners announced The 2013 physics Nobel Prize goes to Peter Higgs and François Englert. Congratulations to them both. Updated A physicist writes...

Guardian blogger and Cern physicist Jon Butterworth has sent in his prediction/wish for today's prize. It should be Higgs, Englert and Cern. Nobel prizes are for discovery, Higgs and Englert discovered the theory, Cern (many people) discovered the reality. If the Nobel Committee decide to stick to their arbitrary precedent of not awarding the prize to collaborations, they are just denying how great science (sometimes) works. Updated 10.16am BST The other runners and riders To quote Ken Peach, an Oxford physics professor, it would be “a scandal” if Higgs (and his colleagues) were not honoured this year. But what else is on the slate? Predictions from Thomson Reuters (who examines these things by looking at citations to important papers in the scientific literature) reckon that Hideo Hosono of the Materials Research Center for Element Strategy, at the Tokyo Institute of Technology might be honoured for his discovery of iron-based superconductors. Alternately, the Thomson Reuters predictions include Geoffrey W. Marcy of University of California, Berkeley, Michel Mayor of the University of Geneva and Didier Queloz of the University of Cambridge - for their discoveries of the first exoplanets.

I say this every year and I’m going to repeat myself because I think he really should win some time soon: another possibility is John Pendry at Imperial College London , for his theoretical work on metamaterials (invisibility cloaks to you and me). Not only because he thought up an entire new field of physics but he's also a wonderful chap. Updated 9.55am BST The most anticipated Nobel announcement for a long, long time... This is the second Nobel Prize of 2013 and, let’s face it, the most eagerly awaited prize announcement for some time. Has so much ever been written by so many before the award of a prize for physics? The stand-out prediction for this year's Nobel has to be an award for last year’s completion of the Standard Model of particle physics, with the disovery at Cern that the Higgs field is indeed real . But who gets the prize for that? Theoretical physicists François Englert and Peter Higgs are the clear favourites.

Englert was first to publish the idea, in 1964, of a field that interacted with fundamental particles and gave them mass; Higgs was the first to point out, merely a few weeks later, the potential existence of the eponymous boson. There are others who did similar work at around the same time, including Tom Kibble, Gerald Guralnik and Carl Richard Hagen. But the prize can only be split a maximum of three ways. Never mind the many thousands of deserving scientists who designed, built and carried out experiments at Cern's Large Hadron Collider. In case you need a quick reminder of the situation, read my colleague Ian Sample’s many , many guides to the headache being faced by the Nobel committee when it comes to the Higgs discovery. The committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will put us all out of our misery some time after 10:45am (BST). Watch this space.

Updated 9.49am BST The 2012 winners Serge Haroche, a professor at the Collège de France and Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, and David J Wineland of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado, Boulder, won last year's physics prize . The citation from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said they won “for groundbreaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems”. They worked out a way to trap, manipulate and study the fundamental particles of light and matter without destroying them. Their work is a crucial step towards building superfast quantum computers and could lead to ways of measuring time with a hundred times greater precision than is possible using atomic clocks. To prevent yourself from biting your nails clean off while waiting for the 2013 announcement, why not re-live the excitement of last year’s prize announcement here while you wait ? The last time the prize went to scientists working in the UK was in 2010, when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, both based at the University of Manchester , won the physics prize for their “groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene”.

Updated Pinterest close Whether or not he wins this year's prize, Peter Higgs has already earned his place in history. But how did a 'hopeless experimenter' – whose original paper was rejected for being of 'no relevance to particle physics' – figure out half a century ago how elementary particles get their masses? And what is a Higgs boson anyway? Video: Guardian Updated 9.41am BST The legacy of the physics Nobel Thanks to the lavish Nobel Prize website , you can read all about the history of the physics prize. It has been awarded since 1901 and winners have included some of the most famous scientists of all time, such as Max Planck, Marie Curie, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Richard Feynman and, leading the fame pack, Albert Einstein. Not a bad group of people to be immortalised alongside. A total of 106 physics prizes have been awarded since their inception and 47 prizes have gone to single recipients. Only two women (Maria Goeppert Mayer and Marie Curie) have ever been awarded this prize and only one person (John Bardeen) has been awarded the prize twice.

The youngest laureate ever was 25-year-old Lawrence Bragg, who was awarded the Nobel, together with his father, Sir William Henry Bragg, in 1915. Updated Higgs, Englert Win 2013 Nobel Physics Prize : NPR Higgs, Englert Win 2013 Nobel Physics Prize Embed Embed Higgs, Englert Win 2013 Nobel Physics Prize Higgs, Englert Win 2013 Nobel Physics Prize Embed Embed Twitter Geoffrey Brumfiel Britain's Peter Higgs and Belgium's Francois Englert won the prize for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson. That's the particle key to explaining why elementary matter has mass. The two will share the $1.25 million prize. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep. RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: And I'm Renee Montagne. Two physicists have won the Nobel Prize for physics for proposing the existence of what is commonly known as the God Particle, or properly known as the Higgs boson, part of a mechanism that explains how the universe works at the most fundamental level.

And here to explain is NPR's science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel. Good morning. GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Good morning. MONTAGNE: So we need you to explain this to us. But first, tell us the names. Who are the winners? BRUMFIEL: Well, the first winner is Peter Higgs. He's 84 years old, from the University of Edinburgh. And in 1964 he predicted this mechanism that would explain why some particles have mass and others don't. Independently, and at nearly exactly the same time, a Belgian physicist named Francois Englert and his recently deceased colleague, Robert Braut, came up with the same idea. And so Englert and Higgs are sharing the prize today. MONTAGNE: Right. Although we do think of it, I believe, as the Higgs - what, mechanism? The Higgs particle? BRUMFIEL: Right, exactly. So yes, Higgs got his name attached to it. And yeah, most people have heard of this particle. It's sometimes called the God Particle, which really drives physicists nuts. But what it actually is, is it's a mechanism made of two parts.

There's a Higgs particle and a Higgs field. And this field is kind of like a magnetic field. It permeates space. And it affects other particles and it gives them mass. So subatomic particles like electrons - maybe you've heard of quarks. They're the little things inside protons and neutrons, they get their mass from the Higgs. But the other thing that the Higgs mechanism does, which physicists are actually a little more interested in, is they're trying to create this sort of unified theory of everything. They want one mathematical equation that explains the universe. And Higgs doesn't go all the way, but it brings their equations closer together. It actually unifies two of the four fundamental forces we know about. And so that's why a lot of physicists are very excited about the Higgs. MONTAGNE: Well, a lot of people were expecting the Higgs to win this year, but why this year in particular? BRUMFIEL: Well, last year, on July 4, as a matter of fact, at a particle accelerator in Switzerland, they actually made some of these Higgs particles for the very first time. Until now, this has all been theory.

It was just something people had written down on paper. And so even though people thought Higgs and Englert deserved the prize, they weren't going to give it to them until they actually saw the particle. That happened last year. Higgs is now 84. Englert is 80. So I mean, you know, they're getting up there. And it was pretty obvious that they were going to have to award this prize as soon as they could. MONTAGNE: The winners, of course, must be happy. But have they responded so far? BRUMFIEL: Yeah, well, they got Englert on the phone and he was ecstatic, of course, to have won. But Peter Higgs is missing in action. Higgs is notoriously media-shy. He hates the limelight. And so I spoke to a colleague of his earlier this morning and he has gone away. He doesn't have a cell phone. He's nowhere to be found. The Nobel Committee couldn't even get a hold of him to let him know he won.

But if Higgs - if Higgs was around, I think what he'd say is, yeah, he's very happy to win the Nobel Prize, of course, but what really excited him, what really was sort of the most important moment for him was when they found this Higgs particle last year. I mean, think about it. He wrote these equations down on paper back in 1964. This is almost 50 years ago. And in intervening years thousands of physicists gathered together, they built this giant particle accelerator that costs billions of dollars, and now they've seen this thing he predicted. It was such a big undertaking that Higgs several times has said he didn't think it was going to happen in his lifetime, and when they made the announcement, he had tears in his eyes. And I think for him, I mean that surely must have been the best thing at all. Nothing could beat it. MONTAGNE: With news of this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in physics, NPR's science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel. Geoff, thanks very much. BRUMFIEL: Thanks, Renee. Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved.

Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc. , an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Englert and Higgs win Nobel physics prize 1 / 10 File picture of British physicist Higgs talking with Belgium physicist Englert File picture of British physicist Peter Higgs (R) talking with Belgium physicist Francois Englert before a news conference on the search for the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva July 4, 2012. Britain's Peter Higgs and Belgium's Francois Englert won the 2013 Nobel prize for physics for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson - the particle key to explaining why elementary matter has mass - the award-giving body said October 8, 2013. Picture taken July 12, 2012.

REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/Files (SWITZERLAND - Tags: SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) Reblog Englert and Higgs win Nobel physics prize Englert and Higgs win Nobel physics prize File picture of British physicist Higgs talking with Belgium physicist Englert More STOCKHOLM (AP) — Physicists Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their theoretical discoveries on how subatomic particles acquire mass. Their theories were confirmed last year by the discovery of the so-called Higgs particle, also known as the Higgs boson, at a laboratory in Geneva, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. The announcement, which was widely expected, was delayed by one hour, which is highly unusual. The academy gave no immediate reason, other than saying on Twitter that it was "still in session" at the original announcement time. The academy decides the winners in a majority vote on the day of the announcement. "I am overwhelmed to receive this award and thank the Royal Swedish Academy," Higgs said in a statement released by the University of Edinburgh.

"I hope this recognition of fundamental science will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research." Englert and Higgs theorized about the existence of the particle in the 1960s to provide an answer to a riddle: why matter has mass. The tiny particle, they believed, acts like molasses on snow — causing other basic building blocks of nature to stick together, slow down and form atoms. But decades would pass before scientists at CERN, the Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Research, were able to confirm its existence. The European particle physics laboratory announced the news in July of last year. Finding the particle — often referred to as the "God particle" — required teams of thousands of scientists and mountains of data from trillions of colliding protons in the world's biggest atom smasher — CERN's Large Hadron Collider — which produces energies simulating those 1 trillionth to 2 trillionths of a second after the Big Bang. The collider cost $10 billion to build and run in a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel beneath the Swiss-French border.

Only about one collision per trillion will produce one of the Higgs bosons in the collider, and it took CERN some time after the discovery of a new "Higgs-like" boson to decide that the particle was, in fact, very much like the Higgs boson expected in the original formulation, rather than a kind of variant. Reblog The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 François Englert, Peter Higgs The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 Photo: A. Mahmoud Peter W. Higgs Prize share: 1/2 The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 was awarded jointly to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider" Photos: Copyright © The Nobel Foundation Share this: To cite this page MLA style: "The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web.

19 Jan 2017. < Higgs boson research wins Nobel physics prize | Toronto Star World Higgs boson research wins Nobel physics prize Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday. ▶ Scientists Peter Higgs and Francois Englert win the 2013 Nobel Prize for physics for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson, the particle key to explaining why elementary matter has mass.(Reuters) By The Associated Press Karl Ritter Tues., Oct. 8, 2013 STOCKHOLM—It took nearly 50 years, but Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for figuring out how the universe's most basic building blocks acquire mass and form the world we know today. What’s behind the Higgs boson dispute? The two men developed their ideas independently of each other in the 1960s and they seemed to underpin the whole Standard Model of physics, which offered a framework for how the universe works.

Yet their theory was only confirmed last year when researchers at the CERN laboratory in Geneva discovered the so-called Higgs boson, or particle, in a major breakthrough. To track down the elusive subatomic unit — sometimes referred to by laymen as the “God particle” — thousands of scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, had to build the world's biggest atom smasher. The $10 billion Large Hadron Collider operates in a 27-kilometre tunnel beneath the Swiss-French border. “I am overwhelmed to receive this award and thank the Royal Swedish Academy,” the 84-year-old Higgs said in a statement released by the University of Edinburgh, where he is a professor emeritus. “I hope this recognition of fundamental science will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research.” Article Continued Below Englert, 80, thanked all those who helped him in his research and said he could not have imagined getting a Nobel Prize when he started the work 50 years ago. Belgian physicist Francois Englert, left, and British physicist Peter Higgs right, shown in this July 4, 2012, file photo, won the Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday.

(Martial Trezzini / AP) “You don't work thinking to get the Nobel Prize. That's not how you work,” said Englert, a professor emeritus at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. “(Still) we had the impression that we were doing something that was important, that would later on be used by other researchers.” For once, the Nobel physics judges picked a prize that had been widely anticipated; their choices are normally hard to predict. However, the announcement was delayed by an hour, which is highly unusual. The academy said on Twitter it was “still in session” when it was supposed to make its announcement, but didn't explain the reason for the delay. It could be a while before the world finds out why, because the academy's deliberations are kept secret for 50 years. Permanent Secretary Staffan Normark said the academy couldn't reach Higgs by phone on Tuesday, but wouldn't say whether that's what caused the delay. By awarding only the men behind the theory, the prize committee avoided the tricky issue of picking someone at CERN to share the award. Nobels can be shared by no more than three people.

Academy member Ulf Danielsson noted that the prize citation also honoured the work done at CERN, even though it didn't single out any of its scientists. “This is a giant discovery, it means the final building block in the so-called standard model for particle physics has been put in place, so it marks a milestone in the history of physics,” Danielsson said. “I'm thrilled that this year's Nobel Prize has gone to particle physics,” said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. He added that the discovery of the particle at CERN “marks the culmination of decades of intellectual effort by many people around the world.” In the CERN cafeteria, applause broke out and champagne bottles popped. Heuer told everyone to applaud themselves for their work. Englert and Higgs were trying to provide an answer to a riddle: why do certain fundamental particles have mass. They proposed the existence of an invisible field that sprawls through space like a net. The building blocks of matter, they suggested, acquired mass shortly after the Big Bang, when they were trapped by this field. Much later, as the universe cooled, they formed atoms.

To detect the field, the scientists suggested looking for the Higgs boson, because all fields are associated with a particle. Decades would pass before scientists at CERN were able to confirm the particle's existence in July 2012. Only about one collision per trillion will produce one of the Higgs bosons in the giant atom collider, and it took CERN some time after the discovery of a new “Higgs-like” boson to decide that the particle was, in fact, very much like the Higgs boson expected in the original formulation. The phrase “God particle” was coined by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman, but it's disliked by most physicists because it connotes the supernatural. Lederman said later that the phrase — mostly used by laymen as an easier way of explaining the theory — was really meant to convey that he felt it was the “goddamn particle,” because it proved so hard to prove. Michael Turner, president of the American Physical Society, an organization of physicists, said the Higgs particle captured the imagination of the public.

“If you're a physicist, you can't get in a taxi anywhere in the world without having the driver ask you about the Higgs particle,” said Turner, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago. Turner said the Higgs is the first in a class of particles that scientists think played a role in shaping the universe. That means it points the way to tackling mysteries like the nature of so-called dark energy and dark matter, he said. The physics prize was the second of this year's Nobel awards to be announced. On Monday, the Nobel Prize in medicine was given to American scientists James Rothman, Randy Schekman and Thomas Sudhof for discoveries about how key substances are moved around within cells. The prizes, established by Swedish industrialist and Alfred Nobel, will be handed out on Dec. 10 — the anniversary of his death in 1896. Each prize is worth 8 million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million). ___ Jordans reported from Berlin. Associated Press writers John Heilprin in Geneva and Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

Peter Higgs and Francois Englert win Nobel physics prize for Higgs boson theory | Metro News Mark Molloy for Metro.co.uk Tuesday 8 Oct 2013 12:27 pm British physicist Peter Higgs, creator of the Higgs boson, has won the Nobel prize in physics (Picture: EPA) Professor Peter Higgs has been awarded the Nobel prize in physics for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson or ‘God particle’. The British scientist shared the award with Belgium’s Francois Englert for their theoretical work about the particle that is fundamental to explaining why elementary matter has mass. ‘I am overwhelmed to receive this award and thank the Royal Swedish Academy,’ said Prof Higgs said in a statement released by the University of Edinburgh. Congratulations to Britain's Professor Peter Higgs, who is sharing this year's #NobelPrize for Physics. — David Cameron (@David_Cameron) October 8, 2013 ‘I would also like to congratulate all those who have contributed to the discovery of this new particle and to thank my family, friends and colleagues for their support.

‘I hope this recognition of fundamental science will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research.’ Belgian physicist Francois Englert (L) and British physicist Peter Higgs (R) shared the Nobel prize (Picture: EPA) The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement: ‘The awarded theory is a central part of the Standard Model of particle physics that describes how the world is constructed. ‘According to the Standard Model, everything, from flowers and people to stars and planets, consists of just a few building blocks: matter particles.’ The two scientists had been favourites to share the $1.25million (£780,000) prize after the elementary particle’s existence was confirmed at the European nuclear research facility in Geneva, Switzerland, last year. The existence of the ‘God particle’ was confirmed in Geneva last year (Picture: AFP / Geyyy) Prime minister David Cameron tweeted saying: ‘Congratulations to Britain’s Professor Peter Higgs, who is sharing this year’s #NobelPrize for Physics.’ Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond also congratulated Prof Higgs. He said: ‘Today, the Higgs boson, which carries his name, is a scientific discovery which is renowned the world over.

‘This richly deserved honour not only highlights the quality of research carried out in Scotland, but also how science inspires us to look for answers to fundamental questions about life and the universe.’ Scientists had searched for the elusive ‘God particle’ for decades when its existence was finally confirmed. Nobel prizes tend to go to ideas that stand the test of time and last year’s breakthrough was too recent to be considered for the 2012 award. Englert and Higgs both theorised about the existence of the particle in the 1960s although Englert was reportedly first. More The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics - Press Release Press Release The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 François Englert, Peter Higgs Press Release 8 October 2013 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2013 to François Englert Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium and Peter W.

Higgs University of Edinburgh, UK “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider” Here, at last! François Englert and Peter W. Higgs are jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 for the theory of how particles acquire mass. In 1964, they proposed the theory independently of each other (Englert together with his now deceased colleague Robert Brout). In 2012, their ideas were confirmed by the discovery of a so called Higgs particle at the CERN laboratory outside Geneva in Switzerland.. The awarded theory is a central part of the Standard Model of particle physics that describes how the world is constructed. According to the Standard Model, everything, from flowers and people to stars and planets, consists of just a few building blocks: matter particles. These particles are governed by forces mediated by force particles that make sure everything works as it should. The entire Standard Model also rests on the existence of a special kind of particle: the Higgs particle.

This particle originates from an invisible field that fills up all space. Even when the universe seems empty this field is there. Without it, we would not exist, because it is from contact with the field that particles acquire mass. The theory proposed by Englert and Higgs describes this process. On 4 July 2012, at the CERN laboratory for particle physics, the theory was confirmed by the discovery of a Higgs particle. CERN’s particle collider, LHC (Large Hadron Collider), is probably the largest and the most complex machine ever constructed by humans. Two research groups of some 3,000 scientists each, ATLAS and CMS, managed to extract the Higgs particle from billions of particle collisions in the LHC. Even though it is a great achievement to have found the Higgs particle — the missing piece in the Standard Model puzzle — the Standard Model is not the final piece in the cosmic puzzle. One of the reasons for this is that the Standard Model treats certain particles, neutrinos, as being virtually massless, whereas recent studies show that they actually do have mass. Another reason is that the model only describes visible matter, which only accounts for one fifth of all matter in the cosmos.

To find the mysterious dark matter is one of the objectives as scientists continue the chase of unknown particles at CERN. Read more about this year's prize Prize amount: SEK 8 million, to be shared equally between the Laureates. Contact persons: Perina Stjernlöf, Press Officer, Phone +46 8 673 95 44, +46 70 673 96 50, perina.stjernlof@kva.se Annika Moberg, Editor, Phone +46 8 673 95 22, Mobile +46 70 325 32 18, annika.moberg@kva.se Nobel Prize® är is a registered trademark of the Nobel Foundation. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, founded in 1739, is an independent organization whose overall objective is to promote the sciences and strengthen their influence in society. The Academy takes special responsibility for the natural sciences and mathematics, but endeavours to promote the exchange of ideas between various disciplines.

Share this: To cite this page MLA style: "The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics - Press Release". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 6 Jan 2017. < Higgs boson, key to the universe, wins Nobel physics prize Higgs boson, key to the universe, wins Nobel physics prize Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander Share View photos File picture of British physicist Peter Higgs (R) talking with Belgium physicist Francois Englert before a news conference on the search for the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva July 4, 2012. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/Files More By Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Britain's Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium won the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle that explains how elementary matter attained the mass to form stars and planets. The insight has been hailed as one of the most important in the understanding of the cosmos. Without the Higgs mechanism all particles would travel at the speed of light and atoms would not exist.

Half a century after the scientists' original prediction, the new building block of nature was finally detected in 2012 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) centre's giant, underground particle-smasher near Geneva. "I am overwhelmed to receive this award," said Higgs, who is known to shun the limelight and did not appear in public on Tuesday despite winning the world's top science prize. "I hope this recognition of fundamental science will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research," he said in a statement via the University of Edinburgh where he works. The two scientists had been favourites to share the 8 million Swedish crown (775 thousand pounds) prize after their theoretical work was vindicated by the CERN experiments. To find the elusive particle, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had to pore over data from the wreckage of trillions of sub-atomic proton collisions. The Higgs boson is the last piece of the Standard Model of physics that describes the fundamental make-up of the universe. Some commentators - though not scientists - have called it the "God particle", for its role in turning the Big Bang into an ordered cosmos.

Higgs' and Englert's work shows how elementary particles inside atoms gain mass by interacting with an invisible field pervading all of space - and the more they interact, the heavier they become. The particle associated with the field is the Higgs boson. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the prize went to Higgs and Englert for work fundamental to describing how the universe is constructed. "According to the Standard Model, everything, from flowers and people to stars and planets, consists of just a few building blocks: matter particles." REMAINING QUESTIONS Although finding the Higgs boson is a remarkable achievement - and one which Higgs once said he never expected to see in his lifetime - it is not the end of the story for physicists trying to understand the structure of the universe. Scientists are now grappling with other mysteries such as understanding the nature of dark matter, which accounts for more than a quarter of the universe, and dark energy, which is believed to be the driver of cosmic expansion. Asked how it felt to be a Nobel winner, Englert told reporters by phone link to Stockholm: "You may imagine that this is not very unpleasant, of course.

I am very, very happy to have the recognition of this extraordinary award." CERN Director General Rolf Heuer said he was "thrilled" that the Nobel prize had gone to particle physics. He said the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN last year marked "the culmination of decades of intellectual effort by many people around the world". Some physicists were surprised that there was no recognition for the CERN teams that discovered the new particle, since there had been speculation of a prize for CERN as an institution. The will of Swedish dynamite millionaire Alfred Nobel limits the award to a maximum of three people - harking back to an earlier era when science was conducted by individuals or very small teams. However, thousands worked on detecting the particle at CERN and a total of six scientists published relevant papers in 1964. Englert, 80, and his colleague Robert Brout - who died in 2011 - were first to publish; but the now 84-year-old Higgs followed just a couple of weeks later and was the first to explicitly predict the existence of a new particle. Similar proposals from American researchers Carl Hagen and Gerald Guralnik and Britain's Tom Kibble appeared shortly afterwards.

Kibble said it was no surprise that he and his colleagues were not included in the Nobel honour since "our paper was unquestionably the last of the three to be published in Physical Review Letters in 1964 - though we naturally regard our treatment as the most thorough and complete". (Additional reporting by Mia Shanley and Niklas Pollard in Stockholm, Ben Hirschler in London and Robert Evans in Geneva; Editing by Alistair Scrutton, Kate Kelland and Ralph Boulton) Reblog

Question: Which British physicist won the Nobel prize in 2013, sharing the prize with Francois Englert?
Answer: Peter Higgs